McCrory is locked in a heated race with Attorney General Cooper to be North Carolina’s governor.

McCrory held a small lead until nearly 90,000 ballots in Durham were tallied late Tuesday night.

Cooper now holds a lead of 4,979 votes.

In a release Thursday, Cooper’s team said the governor-elect said the formation of their legal team was to “protect the results of the gubernatorial election.” Cooper’s team will be led by Marc Elias and Kelvin Hamilton of Perkins Coie and Edwin Speas of Poyner Spruill.

The McCrory campaign and the state Republican party have voiced concerns about potential irregularities after Durham reported a large number of votes late in the night, tilting the race in favor of cooper.

“Grave concerns should be felt on both sides. Everyone should want to make sure that our election process is fair and done according to the letter of the law,” said Kami Mueller with the NCGOP.

The Durham County Board of Elections said there was a problem with some electronic cards that had election results on them. But those results were tallied by hand and the numbers were accurate.

“No one knows for sure the outcome of the election, and tens of thousands of ballots remain outstanding and not yet counted,” said Jason Torchinsky, chief legal counsel for the Pat McCrory Committee Legal Defense Fund.

Jason Torchinsky specializes in election law and has represented candidates around the country in prior recount matters, the McCrory campaign said.